


Paying Dues

by mimesere



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Post-Episode: s05e22 Not Fade Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 22:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3586017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimesere/pseuds/mimesere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Think of it this way,” Lilah says. “You’re probably damned if you do and definitely damned if you don’t.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paying Dues

When he wakes up, Gunn is surprised by two things. The first is that he can wake up at all given his last clear memories are of looking up at a dragon and feeling the not-slow-enough seep of his own blood coming out his side. The second is Lilah Morgan in a chair next to him, humming to herself as she goes through paperwork. He sits up, bracing himself for pain that never really arrives. 

“Standard perpetuity clause?” says Gunn, because he read his contract. After the fact, admittedly, but it was too late the minute they walked in the door anyway. 

“Loophole,” she says, spreading her hands out and smiling at him, “because I’m amazing.” The smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“I’m sorry about Wesley,” he says. Because he is. 

“Wesley is not dead,” says another voice and he about has a heart attack. “Anymore.”

Lilah‘s lips thin as she looks behind Gunn at Illyria. Gunn doesn’t turn; he’s still not totally able to deal with her. It. “I appreciate your sympathy,” Lilah says to Gunn. “But as you’ve now heard, it’s not necessary.”

“Loophole?” he asks and she smiles, a real one, tired and sad. 

“Something like that.”

“Do I want to know?”

She says not really and he believes her. Lilah has always been honest when it mattered. 

Wesley looks terrible, skin stretched tight over bone and no soft edges anywhere. Illyria watches over him, a fallen god in the shell of a person Gunn loved, and looks confused by his? her? it’s? own anger and worry. Gunn’s tired and every time he thinks about Wesley in that hospital bed or Fred or any of it, his mind shies away and his chest aches like he’s being hollowed out. 

Lilah lays it all out for him while Wesley’s stabilizing: they’re going to leave on “sabbatical” (she air quotes it and everything) while the situation with the senior partners is being reviewed and Los Angeles goes straight to hell. They’re assets, she tells him; Wesley and Fred have already died, Illyria’s not subject to the contracts at all, and Gunn is their best chance for some measure of peace.

“Don’t stay in one place,” she tells him. “Find a way out.”

“You want me to break a contract with hell,” he says. “Because that goes so well for the people who try.”

"You’re already damned,” she says. They’re having their little strategy session in Wesley’s hospital room and she smooths the cover beside his hand. Illyria watches them silently, head tilted to one side and unblinking. “We’ve already won.”

“So what am I even doing?”

Lilah shrugs. “Countersuing, basically.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?” she asks him. “Don’t you want your soul?”

If it means he can start sleeping without worrying about screaming himself awake, sure. The air conditioner starts up and Illyria’s hair moves gently, catching his eye. He’s pretty sure he’s stuck screaming himself awake no matter what, though. 

She watches him looking at Illyria and not looking at Wesley. “Don’t you want their souls?”

It’s stupid. It’s so stupid. He’s signing them up for—he doesn’t even know what he’s signing them up for. A chance. Maybe. If he’s good enough and they steal enough time.

“Think of it this way,” Lilah says. “You’re probably damned if you do and definitely damned if you don’t.”

In the end, of course, he takes the chance for them. Gunn justifies it to himself in all sorts of ways, but it all comes down to helping the hopeless and there’s no one more hopeless than they are.

It takes them a few weeks to get ready: Wesley gets stronger and stays quiet, Illyria watches him like a mildly interesting documentary, and Lilah hands him set after set of identity documents and bag after bag of cash. 

“This makes us look like criminals,” he says. He’s already mentally promising himself to drive no more than 5 miles over the speed limit. 

“Get Wesley to drive when he can, then. Or your pocket god if you can convince him to dress up like a real girl.” Lilah hands over copies of the contracts. “Good luck,” she says. 

“You could come with us—” he starts to say and she straight laughs in his face. Okay then. 

“You leave tomorrow,” she says. “I recommend not telling me where you’re going, because I’ll sell you out the minute the senior partners ask.”

He doesn’t tell her where they’re going. It helps that he doesn’t know either. What’s left of his friends are waiting for him and all he has to protect them with are his good intentions and an ill-gotten encyclopedic knowledge of modern contract law.

The road stretches out in front of them, heat shimmering off the asphalt.


End file.
